In using a billiard cue, a billiard player ordinarily (1) grasps the butt of the cue with one hand, (2) supports the cue shaft in the crotch between the thumb and forefinger of the other hand used as a guide (this hand being positioned on the surface of the billiard table), and (3) then moves the cue longitudinally relative to the guide hand with a short jab or thrusting motion. The smooth movement of the cue across the supporting surfaces of the guide hand is extremely critical in achieving accuracy in shooting. It is very important for this movement to be achieved with the least possible friction between the guide hand and the cue shaft.
A common method of reducing friction between the longitudinally moving cue shaft and the player's guide hand is to apply a dry lubricating powder to the portions of the guide hand with which the cue shaft comes into contact. This dry lubricant is typically a white chalk powder that is applied to the player's hand by rubbing the hand against a large cone-shaped cake of the chalk. Another method of reducing friction between the longitudinally moving cue shaft and the player's guide hand is to apply the lubricating powder or chalk to the cue shaft itself.
In either case, the powder must be applied frequently throughout play and is quite messy to use. For one thing, it is difficult to avoid getting the powder on the player's clothing. In addition, the powder tends to fall onto the surface of the billiard table and onto the floor on which the table is located. At the end of a session of billiards, both the felt covering on the billiard table and the floor surrounding the table are frequently covered with powder. To remove the lubricating powder, the billiard table must be brushed hard for a long period of time. Such hard brushing reduces the life of the felt covering on the table to a very significant extent.
Another means for reducing the friction between the longitudinally sliding cue shaft and the guide hand of the player is a billiard glove such as disclosed in Anast U.S. Pat. No. 1,362,461 issued Dec. 14, 1920, in Stokes U.S. Pat. No. 4,064,563 issued Dec. 27, 1977, and in Blakeman U.S. Pat. No. 4,103,362 issued Aug. 1, 1978. While such a glove is effective in smoothing the longitudinal movement of the cue across the guide hand of the billiard player, these gloves have failed to gain wide acceptance.
There are several reasons for this. Players' hands differ markedly in size, and the gloves are available in only a limited number of sizes. Even if the proper size glove is available, many players feel self-conscious about wearing the glove. Many other players do not like wearing the glove because it can interfere to an extent with the desired positioning of the guide hand on the surface of the billiard table. And to avoid slowing up play, the glove must be worn throughout the course of a game, even while the player is waiting for his or her turn to shoot.
The game of billiards in its various modern forms--English billiards (played with 3 balls and 6 pockets), French billiards (played with 3 balls and no pockets, also known as carom), pocket billiards (pool), and snooker (played with 21 balls, a cue ball and 6 small pockets)--has been known since the 19th century. The problems associated with the use of chalk powder have been known at least that long, and have continued to the present day. Another early effort to eliminate the described chalking problems was to hold a small sleeve or tube--which was constructed of a rigid material--in such a way that a billiard cue shaft with a uniform diameter could slide backward and forward within the sleeve or tube. This effort was made--as shown by Gschwendtner U.S. Pat. No. 529,731--as early as 1894. The patent in question stated (page 2, lines 4-12) that some of the materials from which the sleeve could be constructed were sheet metal (preferably aluminum), celluloid, vulcanized rubber and indurated (hardened) paper. Other billiard cue sleeves made of rigid material for use with a billiard cue shaft having a uniform diameter are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,092,189 issued to Varian in 1914 and in U.S. Pat. No. 3,534,959 issued to Elswick in 1970.
U.S. Pat. No. 3,416,794, issued to Ciano in 1968, discloses a billiard cue sleeve that is usable with cue shafts that are tapered, even though the sleeve is made of a substantially rigid material such as spring steel, because the sleeve has a split ring configuration (Ciano patent, col. 3, lines 43-49). U.S. Pat. No. 4,147,346, issued to Giannetti in 1979, also discloses a billiard cue sleeve that is usable with tapered cue shafts even though it is made of a rigid material, in this case because the two rigid members that comprise the sleeve are hinged to each other.
Still another early effort to eliminate the described chalking problems was to construct billiard cue sleeves of leather or similar materials. As seen from the specification in Callaghan U.S. Pat. No. 870,491, these sleeves were known at least as early as 1907, and actually considerably earlier than that. The Callaghan specification is silent as to the shape of the billiard cue shaft with which the sleeve was used, so it was apparently the conventional shape that had been known for a very long time--which tapered slightly and continuously from one end of the shaft to the other--and the sleeve was able to adapt to that taper. Since the patent describes a member that was positioned on the exterior of the sleeve for keeping the sleeve from sliding out of the user's hand as the only novel feature of the invention, it appears that sleeves constructed from a solid, continuous "relatively soft or yieldable substance" such as leather (Callaghan patent, page 1, lines 64-66)--and which did not include an externally positioned anti-sliding member--were known much earlier than 1907.
Still other devices designed to be used to support a billiard cue shaft in a friction-reducing manner, and which would at the same time avoid the described chalking problems, have been developed over the years. U.S. Pat. No. 570,459, issued to Cronin on Nov. 3, 1896, discloses a device that includes a bracket that supports a roller across which the cue shaft moves. The device disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,931,649, issued to Furda on Apr. 5, 1960, includes a fulcrum block and an overlying resilient clamp plate that together form a passage through which the cue shaft moves.
During all the years just discussed, no one has suggested the present very effective invention. This, despite the fact that in all that time the games of pool and billiards have continued to be popular, efforts have continued to be made to improve the equipment used in those games, and the material of which the device of the present invention is constructed--sleeving formed of braided filaments or strands of various types of material--has been known for many years. (See, for example, the sleeving material disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 2,393,530, issued to Harris Sep. 28, 1943.)